POV Tess Hansen
A day has passed since the attack of the Colony and the city is still a mess. Lynthari are left without their new matriarch, Myrra. The humans are looking for someone to blame, and rumors about lynthari being invaders are spreading.
Lorven being a traitor, Isola is terribly hurt, and Obelia is reorganizing her guild and moving it to a different building.
Hundreds of dead fill the streets, many of which are destroyed, and a lot of houses are unusable.
It's not a nice look. But it's hard to care for all of that while looking at the situation in our group. Hadwin is dead, Nathaniel is gone, Lily is moving like a soulless husk while mumbling that even Nathaniel left her. The twins are blaming Sophie for not doing well enough even after they let her use their skill, and Kim is awkwardly trying to get everyone to get along.
And I as well, am feeling my uselessness during all of that. I know that the enemy we faced wasn't weak, yet I still feel that I could and should have done more.
I sigh and look at Maya sitting next to me, in the garden of one of the smaller houses that Obelia got for us.
“You are sighing way too much, Tess,” she smiles, but that smile doesn't reach her eyes.
“Not everyone can use their skill to block their emotions,” I shoot back at her.
Maya just nods, “So, what are we going to do?”
“Become stronger, obviously.”
“You are not worried about the Colony?”
“I am, the First One was terrifying. But Nat hurt him badly and knowing him, he is after the ant to finish what he started. Especially after what that ant did to Hadwin.”
“But that isn't the only reason he left,” she says, and I nod.
I continue, “I think it's better this way, Maya, I really do. We started relying on him way too much, and the fight against the First One was a wake-up call. Yes, the situation was terrible, but in the future, it will probably become way worse.”
“Lily got too attached, Kim followed him like a puppy, and I kept asking him for advice,” Maya counts down, “I mean, these aren’t bad things, there are bigger groups in Hell difficulty than ours doing team play, but I do agree with you that we might have become too comfortable.”
“Yes, that's why we will be on our own for a while, Maya. We will level up, we will help Lily with Beyond, and we will go and take down the Fallen Hero on our own.”
“And if someone else dies, Tess?”
“I won't allow it. And if anyone doesn’t want to go, they can stay here for the rest of the tutorial, I won't blame them.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Maya pokes my shoulder and stands up, “I will speak to Kim and the twins and try to help them a bit. Will you deal with Sophie and Lily? They seem down too.”
“Look at you, giving me orders,” I stand up, with a tired smile on my face.
Maya's expression is gentle, “I don’t think they’re the only ones that need some help and time to process it all, Tess, so think of yourself too, and if you need help, come to me. You can think of me as a knock-off version of that weirdo.”
I'm the one who wanted this group to happen, and I'm the one who kept urging Nat to join us. I’ve been trying to make us all friends, so I’d better not let it fall apart so easily.
Having Maya worry about me feels weird, but in a nice way, as she said, with her [Focus], she can be like Nat at times. She can be calm and reliable when she needs to be, and she’s smarter than she usually lets on. And now that Hadwin is… I shake my head and push the thought out. There will be time for me to grieve later.
“Yes, let's prove that there was a reason for us to end up in Hell difficulty.”
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The room we were transported to before has been destroyed, walls crumbling, crystal pillars missing. As far as I can see, the tunnels are scorched, and burned, with some lingering smoke hanging around, and ant corpses lie scattered across the floor.
Myrra and I start walking, our skills lighting the pitch-black darkness, and our senses constantly scan the area, on the lookout for collapsing tunnels and enemies.
Yet there are none, and minutes turn into hours, the never-ending stream of tunnels empty and void of any life.
At some point, we reach the parts of the tunnels made from that same gray metal that makes up some of the buildings in Virelia. The indestructible one. These parts are only scorched on the surface, and here we finally detect some life. Ants, most of them barely level ten.
There is no hesitation at all as we kill any ant we detect, it doesn’t matter how much they run or that they don't even try to attack.
Skills activate, fire burns them, and projectiles made of ice pierce them. There is no mercy in our actions, and as we delve into these parts, more of the ants start appearing, and I sense the skill I left on the First One. The connection is weak and really far away, but it's something we can use for navigation, and we head in this direction.
Once in a while, we reach a dead-end, either a natural one or one caused by the explosion or the ants trying to block us as tunnels made of stone mix with indestructible hallways. We spend days mapping the tunnels and looking for a way through and sometimes even making our own way.
A few times they try to bury us down there, but the anchors I keep leaving behind us always help, and we teleport before we end up buried.
My domain's reach has also expanded, so I frequently send it as far ahead as I can, creating anchors in different tunnels and transporting us to them.
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Other than the ants, no monsters live here, and the only sounds are those of our skills, or their chitin legs against the gray stone or the tunnels that connect to it.
Neither Myrra or I speak much and when we do, it's usually a short conversation.
We reach a point where the tunnels are blocked with skills alone, as they’re all made from that gray stone that even the ants seem incapable of destroying, so we just bulldoze our way through the monsters. There are no ants able to resist us, and they are barely any trouble between my skills and Myrra's.
The fake Champion candidate Myrra likes to use fire and ice skills, but often she combines them, creating an element that is hard to describe. Myrra calls it Aurora glass, and it's a crystalline material with reflective facets that change colors according to how she uses the skill.
I sense that she is using another skill to facilitate the combination, but I don't question her any further and observe her creation. Myrra is creating barriers from it, sometimes weapons. Once in a while, she creates a surface from Aurora glass, steps through it, and reappears from another surface nearby.
I don't understand it fully, but it's a nice way to take my mind off stuff and examine it.
My eyes still hurt, my sight is hazy, and my head isn't quite back to normal, so I run my passive constantly, fueled by my thermal energy. It’s slowly healing the aftereffects of Mana Wavelength Iris, the trait that allows me to see into the world of mana more than before. But at a cost, as these things always go.
Would this trait have even been offered if I had spent more points on physical stats to better prepare my body for such a trait? Or would it have been withheld if I had gone that way?
It's something I want to know and might learn, further in the future, along with methods for controlling the black mana. During the fight against the First One, I was able to use it and let it flow through my body, using that mana to power my skills making them much more powerful. It’s most likely something akin to picking Potency over Amplification for a Mana upgrade.
“Anything interesting going through your mind, feral one?” Myrra asks as we sit in the middle of a straight tunnel that stretches on for what feels like forever.
We took a break after the ants tried to drown us and then suffocate us. Surviving it took a toll on both of us.
“The usual stuff, my skills and such,” I respond.
She smiles a bit and leans against the wall, “It's already been days, aren't you missing your group?”
I think about it for a bit and then give her an honest answer, “A bit.”
She fixes her hair a bit and her tail continues to sway, “I noticed it before, but you are not easy to rile up or quick to open up to people. You might joke, and spend time with them, but you still like to keep a distance. Tell me, are you scared of letting people get close?”
The way she says it annoys me. It sounds like she is looking for a fight.
Instead of answering, I ask her, “Why are you here, Myrra? Is it really to kill the First One, to protect lynthari, or do you want to take revenge for the matriarch? Or maybe you want to take revenge for yourself? Too ashamed of your fears during the fight and your inability to do more?”
Our eyes meet, neither of us avoiding the gaze of the other, the silence almost threatening. After a few frustrating days down there, both of us are a bit touchy.
Myrra stands up and takes a few steps towards me, her tail standing up in a threatening manner and her pupils wide open. Both of her canines show their full beauty. She is really angry.
“What, not used to a human talking back to you?” I add to the fuel and I see her hand closing into a fist, veins popping on it.
So I add a bit more, “Or maybe you were scared of responsibilities? You didn’t want to end up like your matriarch, tied to her title, and wanted to keep your mostly careless life?”
Mana starts leaking from her and she opens her mouth, “You think it might be your fault that that man died.” She takes another step closer. “But you don’t feel much sadness so that worries you so you decided to run. Hoping they’d either become strong enough to survive so that you could befriend them, or that they would die now before you get too attached.”
Myrra lowers herself, her eyes in line with mine, “Come on, Feral One, deactivate that fucking skill and try to say those words to me again.”
I feel my heart beating wildly just at the thought of turning off [Focus].
She squints her eyes, her mouth turning into a smile, “You won’t do it? So why don’t you attack me instead?”
“Fuck off,” I say instead.
Myrra starts laughing, “Such words lack an impact, hearing them from someone hiding behind skills.”
“Said the pampered lynthari who kept bothering people because they were too fucking bored. Hiding under their matriarch's skirt, instead of dealing with the Calamities. Maybe if you guys didn't fuck around all the time and actually did something, she would still be alive.” I say and watch as her face changes.
I continue, “Did it hit too close? Go on, why don’t you attack me?” I mock her.
Myrra does just that. She swings her fist at me and I duck under it, immediately following it with a kick that Myrra dodges with a speed that I barely track.
As on cue, we both use our mana at the same time to strengthen our bodies. Neither of us uses any skills as we decided beforehand and we just attack each other, using our bodies.
Her fist hits my face and rocks my head back as another punch hits my chest, throwing me against the wall. She is faster than me, even as I use the entirety of my mana to strengthen myself. Myrra seems to specialize in dexterity while I’m mostly split between constitution and strength.
A few more blows to my chest and one more to my face, the last one drawing blood. They all hurt, but I hold on and when she attacks again, I let her connect and grab her arm.
Our eyes meet for a second and I bury my knee into her belly, lifting my knee to compensate for her height.
Myrra gasps for air and my fist hits the bottom of her chin. This time it's her head swinging back, only to rebound as she smashes her forehead into my face, breaking my nose and causing me to stagger backward, dripping blood.
Still I hold on and kick, aiming for her crotch this time and managing to connect.
Myrra groans in pain, shock on her face. “You little bitch,” she gasps and punches me two more times before I manage to avoid the third, throwing a punch to her side, and finally letting go.
More mana roars through her body and she leaps into action.
For several long minutes, we continue, exchanging blows. It’s not pretty and we barely bother avoiding each other’s attacks, as if the pain makes us forget. Blood is drawn, bones are cracked, and we throw each other against the walls as we fight in the long pitch-black tunnel lit by my thermal orbs floating nearby.
Two beings over level 200 fist-fighting like drunkards.
And as the fight progresses, my hold over [Focus] becomes weaker and my attacks reflect that and Myrra grows more aggressive as well. We kick, we scratch, and we bite. Myrra spits blood into my eyes in an attempt to gain an advantage, so I punch her in the neck. She chokes me and I break her finger.
In the end, I throw one last punch at her chin and she staggers and then falls, face against the ground.
With a sigh, I lean against the wall of the tunnel and slide to the ground. My entire body hurts, my bones are cracked, I have wounds all over, and yet I do not use my passive, and breathe heavily.
Myrra lifts her bruised face from the ground and our eyes meet. Both of us have the same expression.
Just two losers.
Unable to stand as she looks into my eyes, she starts using her arms to pull herself closer, crawling towards me. She reaches me and then lays her head on my thigh, turning away from me, and curling up, as her body starts to shake.
Slowly I reach out with my bruised and bloodied hand and gently caress her hair without saying a word.